Latin American Society Today

Abstract

This Element presents the main characteristics of the current social structure in Latin America. We focus on demographic trends, migration, families, incomes, education, health and housing, and examine the general policy trends for all of these issues. Our main questions are: What is the social structure in Latin America like today? What changes have taken place in recent decades, particularly since the turn of the millennium? We argue that although in some dimensions there are continuities, including the persistence of problems from the past, we believe that the Latin American social structure, viewed as a whole, experienced significant transformations.

Comparability and Equivalence in Social Research

“…What, though, does this indicator, that seems to make little sense in the case of Argentinian scientists, tell us? In general, it could be argued that it hints to the so-called process of de-elitization of higher education (Benza & Kessler, 2020), about which much has been written in recent years in Latin America. And since the gap in ling uistic skills -in the English language -amidst Argentinian scientists and the general national population is less significant than in Brazil and Chile, this indicator may also suggest lower social selectiv it y in the access to the scientif ic system in Argentina since as Kaplan and Piovani (2018) have shown, these skills are strongly associated with social class and parents' educational attainment.…”